Kolkata: Day 7
The long, winding, and bumpy road to our Day 7 distribution in Kakdwip took us to a small remote village along the way. It was the home of one of our overseas volunteers. We stopped for a short coconut break. We wandered along the narrow pathways in the village and we were invited in as honoured guests by the the villagers.
It was an extended family of four brothers, their wives, children, grandchildren, and mother all living under one roof. it was a cottage industry where two of the son's wives were adding bead work and intricate details to colourful saris. They told us that they work between two and three full days to earn about 300 Rupees (about $ 6.50) when the saris are completed.
After a short visit and introductions we continued the forty-five kilometres to our bedkit distribution for the day.
We spent four hours under sunny skies and 35°C to complete our 737 bedkit distribution.
From the smiling faces we know there will be 737 children getting a good night's sleep so they are ready to face the next days challenges and attend school.
Thanks to our donors.
Edie Haslauer
for Team Kolkata 2011
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It was an extended family of four brothers, their wives, children, grandchildren, and mother all living under one roof. it was a cottage industry where two of the son's wives were adding bead work and intricate details to colourful saris. They told us that they work between two and three full days to earn about 300 Rupees (about $ 6.50) when the saris are completed.
After a short visit and introductions we continued the forty-five kilometres to our bedkit distribution for the day.
We spent four hours under sunny skies and 35°C to complete our 737 bedkit distribution.
From the smiling faces we know there will be 737 children getting a good night's sleep so they are ready to face the next days challenges and attend school.
Thanks to our donors.
Edie Haslauer
for Team Kolkata 2011
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Kolkata: A Visit to Mother's House
We had the privilege to visit Mother Teresa's house in Kolkata.
All of us were touched by the serenity of the residence close to the chaos of the street. Some time was spent in reflection at her tomb and we viewed her spartan room.
A brief visit to one of her orphanages was moving. It's miraculous that a tiny woman from Albania had such an impact on the disenfranchised of the world.
Murray Dryden's project started from a small distribution and grew until the millionth bedkit was given last year.
We feel blessed to be a part of the Drydens' vision and feel gratitude to the donors who help us carry forward the sharing of bedkits.
Gail Tedford
for Team Kolkata 2011
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All of us were touched by the serenity of the residence close to the chaos of the street. Some time was spent in reflection at her tomb and we viewed her spartan room.
A brief visit to one of her orphanages was moving. It's miraculous that a tiny woman from Albania had such an impact on the disenfranchised of the world.
Murray Dryden's project started from a small distribution and grew until the millionth bedkit was given last year.
We feel blessed to be a part of the Drydens' vision and feel gratitude to the donors who help us carry forward the sharing of bedkits.
Gail Tedford
for Team Kolkata 2011
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Kolkata: Day 5
We're on the road to Basirhat. It's a long drive along a bumpy and windy road. There are detours and town signs that are not complete.
We see a 16-foot van turn on a 12-foot-wide street.
We're heading to the Ganges and are within a 5-minute walk to the border of Bangladesh.
We're welcomed by conch horns trumpeting and anointed with oil ... the smell of incense ... candles blowing and a Hindu blessing ... presented with bouquets of flowers and showered with marigold petals. We have all been on vacations before as tourists ... now we feel like travellers immersed in the local customs and ways of India.
Eight days ago, when landing in Kolkata, who would have thought that today when we sat down to eat with our Overseas Volunteer Organization partners after a long and dusty day we would find ourselves mixing our Dal and rice with our fingers and eating with our hand just like our new friends.
Oh Kolkata!!
Warren Wagstaff
for Team Kolkata 2011
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We see a 16-foot van turn on a 12-foot-wide street.
We're heading to the Ganges and are within a 5-minute walk to the border of Bangladesh.
We're welcomed by conch horns trumpeting and anointed with oil ... the smell of incense ... candles blowing and a Hindu blessing ... presented with bouquets of flowers and showered with marigold petals. We have all been on vacations before as tourists ... now we feel like travellers immersed in the local customs and ways of India.
Eight days ago, when landing in Kolkata, who would have thought that today when we sat down to eat with our Overseas Volunteer Organization partners after a long and dusty day we would find ourselves mixing our Dal and rice with our fingers and eating with our hand just like our new friends.
Oh Kolkata!!
Warren Wagstaff
for Team Kolkata 2011
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Kolkata: The fourth distribution
It can't be!!!
On our fourth distribution day, we arrived in the village of Barrackpore, about an hour outside Kolkata, to an open field surrounded by waiting parents and children. The Rotary Club members were eager to help us transform this barren area into our SCAW distribution site.
After setting up the bedkit display against a beautiful rustic background for the photos of the children, we waited for the trucks with the bedkits to arrive. We went to meet the future bedkit recipients and their parents.
As we meandered through the long colourful line, shook hands, and photographed the incredible faces, I began to shake a little boy's hand. He was wearing a blue knit sweater with two white reindeer. As i shook his hand and looked at the sweater, my thought process was as follows: "I've seen that pattern on a sweater before ... It is definitely Canadian ... It looks familiar ... My boys had sweaters just like it."
And then it hit me. My mother knit my sons sweaters just like it years ago. I gave them away to a charity a few years later. In my emotional reaction to this discovery, I checked for a label to make sure I wasn't going crazy and that maybe it was a storebought purchase. No label. It was a hand-knit sweater. What are the chances that this could be one of the two sweaters my mom knitted a lifetime ago? This little boy halfway across the world may be wearing a sweater my boys wore. I am shaking as write this blog still in disbelief thinking that this could not possibly be a reality.
I just know that this SCAW distribution in a little village outside Kolkata is where I am supposed to be at this point in my life and that, maybe, my mom agrees.
Marianne Langford
for Team Kolkata 2011
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On our fourth distribution day, we arrived in the village of Barrackpore, about an hour outside Kolkata, to an open field surrounded by waiting parents and children. The Rotary Club members were eager to help us transform this barren area into our SCAW distribution site.
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| From Kolkata 2011 |
As we meandered through the long colourful line, shook hands, and photographed the incredible faces, I began to shake a little boy's hand. He was wearing a blue knit sweater with two white reindeer. As i shook his hand and looked at the sweater, my thought process was as follows: "I've seen that pattern on a sweater before ... It is definitely Canadian ... It looks familiar ... My boys had sweaters just like it."
And then it hit me. My mother knit my sons sweaters just like it years ago. I gave them away to a charity a few years later. In my emotional reaction to this discovery, I checked for a label to make sure I wasn't going crazy and that maybe it was a storebought purchase. No label. It was a hand-knit sweater. What are the chances that this could be one of the two sweaters my mom knitted a lifetime ago? This little boy halfway across the world may be wearing a sweater my boys wore. I am shaking as write this blog still in disbelief thinking that this could not possibly be a reality.
I just know that this SCAW distribution in a little village outside Kolkata is where I am supposed to be at this point in my life and that, maybe, my mom agrees.
Marianne Langford
for Team Kolkata 2011
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Kolkata: Poetry from India
Hold on to your hats!
Women carrying bowls of dung,
Mangy dogs, baby goats,
Cocky roosters and runaway cows,
Dotted lines that don't mean a thing,
Whoever honks the loudest merges,
Signs, that say, "Obey traffic rules,"
Green bananas lining the streets,
Chickens huddled in large cages,
Villagers meeting at the market,
Locals waiting in the rice paddies,
Open-air butcher and barber shops,
Rickshaws, carts, bicycles, and buses loaded with bedkits,
Multi-coloured sarees,
Children with smiles,
Sunset over the Indian mustard fields.
Another day of grateful children, families and SCAW volunteers!
Marianne Langford
for Team Kolkata 2011
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Kolkata: The team is complete
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| From Kolkata 2011 |
Special thanks to Rotarian K. B. Ghosh for emailing us the pictures and blog post.
You can see more in the Kolkata 2011 Photo Album.
You can see more in the Kolkata 2011 Photo Album.
Team Kolkata has arrived!!!!!
Shown in the photo above are (Left to right) Back row: Gail Tedford, Warren Wagstaff (Team Leader). Middle row: Suzanne Silverberg, Marianne Langford, George Foster. Front row: Edie Haslauer.
Over the past 24 hours each member of the team has made his or her way to Kolkata. Regardless of the time of day of arrival -- 10 pm, 10 am, or 1 am -- each member of the team was met by the smiling faces of our hosts, the Rotary club of Dum Dum and their wives and were presented with beautiful garlands which perfumed the air.
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| From Kolkata 2011 |
As each team member arrived they joined the welcoming committe and our numbers grew till we were all here ... The team is now complete!!!!!
With bags stowed in the cars, the new arrivals were whisked through the streets of Kolkata, experiencing the sites, sounds, smells, and colours of our new home for the next two weeks. It is a jumble and assault to the senses as we are all weary and a little sleep-deprived and disoriented after twenty four hours of travel -- but we perked up instantly at the excitement that was all around us -- and we can't wait to see children in a day or so ...
Warren Wagstaff
for Team Kolkata 2010
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Kolkata: The team has arrived
A message was received by telephone from Kolkata this morning. The team wants you all to know they are preparing for a distribution of 6,500 bedkits in Kolkata, India.
"We have no Internet access at the moment.
"We have all arrived safely and were greeted warmly by the Rotarians and then enjoyed a sumptuous dinner hosted by the Rotarians. We have also visited the facility where the bedkits are being bundled and are impressed with the quality and number of items in the bedkits.
"We are all excited about the adventures to come."
Warren Wagstaff
for Team Kolkata 2010
As soon as more information arrives, we'll post it here."We have all arrived safely and were greeted warmly by the Rotarians and then enjoyed a sumptuous dinner hosted by the Rotarians. We have also visited the facility where the bedkits are being bundled and are impressed with the quality and number of items in the bedkits.
"We are all excited about the adventures to come."
Warren Wagstaff
for Team Kolkata 2010
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Kolkata: Post your comments here
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Chennai: The team prepares
Pictured Left to right: Dante Racioppo, Karen Morgan, Doug. Cunningham (Team Leader), Eileen Rademacher, Roberta Harris, Don Harris.
Click photo to see a larger version.
Leave your comments here.
Chennai: Post your comments here
To add your own comment, enter it in the box at the bottom of this page. Then click on the button to "Post Comment." As a courtesy, please include your name at the end of your comment.
Bangladesh: Trip Reports Posted
The donor newsletter for the Bangladesh bedkit distribution has gone to print and can be downloaded from the Sleeping Children Website. |
| Bangladesh 2010 |
If you would like to read the reports on the web, you can read them in their entirety here.
Here is a download link for the PDF version of the newsletter.
Nicaragua: Trip Reports Posted
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| Nicaragua 2010 |
If you would like to read the reports on the web, you can read them in their entirety here.
Here is a download link for the PDF version of the newsletter.
Nicaragua: Mission Accomplished
This being our last distribution of the year, we finish 2010 with a grand total of 1,114,630 bedkits, after Nicaragua, 2010.
Our tenth day of distributionOur final day was planned for two sites to reach our target of 5,000 bedkits delivered. It was Rememberance Day back home and we reminisced about our personal experiences on this day with a sense of pride and gratitude.
Our first site was the rural school just west of Leon where we had been the previous day. The Rotary volunteer who had worked with us the previous day, had the site and volunteers ready when we arrived.
Shortly after lunch we were packing up and off to San Juan del Rio Coco, just beyond Ticuantepe: a four-hour trip. After we passed through Ticuantepe where we had been earlier in the week, we headed to the what was to be the most beautiful and challenging of our drives while in Nicaragua. Crossing an overflown “stream” and washed out road, up to our axels, we were all relieved at not having to get out and push!
Hairpin curves, large washed out chunks of road, verdant hills, and deep valleys were our reality for the fantastic 30-minute “drive” to the town of del Rio Coco. You could imagine hot flowing rivers of lava that had created the shapes and definition of what we were seeing.
Near dark we arrived and set up in the municipal centre building; happy to be indoors as the light of day was near gone.
A loud cheer went up from the team and Rotary volunteers as the last child received the 5,000th bedkit.
Happy and exhausted, we hugged and loaded into our vehicles after a job well done.
Janet Helmer
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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Nicaragua: 598 children in Diria
Today we travelled about one hour south east of Managua to a town called Diria. Here we distributed 598 bedkits: 350 to town and school children and the rest to rural children bused in to the distribution site.
The distribution went very well. Lots of volunteers and co-operative children and parents are to be thanked. We had a perfectly-controlled site that was out of the sun.
We were very lucky to have Elizabeth Cole, an energetic, fluent Spanish/English-speaking young lady stationed here as a teacher through the US Peace Corps, who acted as our translator throughout the day.
Garrick Byers
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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The distribution went very well. Lots of volunteers and co-operative children and parents are to be thanked. We had a perfectly-controlled site that was out of the sun.
We were very lucky to have Elizabeth Cole, an energetic, fluent Spanish/English-speaking young lady stationed here as a teacher through the US Peace Corps, who acted as our translator throughout the day.
We were able to do three parent interviews with Elizabeth's help. At the end of our interview, the parent made a statement that we thought would be worth passing on.
After expressing her gratitude for the bedkit donations, she wanted us to know that having the Canadian volunteers come here and actually physically hand the bedkits to the child was a wonderful thing for two reasons:
- It showed the people the love that came with the bedkits, and
- It ensured that the bedkits contents all actually reached the child.
Garrick Byers
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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Nicaragua: 623 children in Masaya
Distribution 7
Masaya, our seventh distribution, was situated 45 minutes south of Managua in an area of volcanoes. As we drove to it we passed two beautiful crater lakes, viewed one "puffing" volcano and several other quiet ones as well.Our distribution site was at a large private school with a huge enclosed open area that unfortunately had little to offer as an attractive background for our photos. 623 children were brought in from thirty rural schools. After having their pictures taken and happily receiving their bedkits they were given a snack before boarding their buses for home.
We too packed up and boarded our van wending our way back to Managua. The route took us through Nicaragua's oldest city: Granada.
We took a short break and walked through the lovely old section of town. Imagine our surprise at hearing "Joy To The World" being rehearsed in the market area as we left. It was the perfect ending to a great day.
Joan Hryniw
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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Nicaragua: 497 children in Sauce
| Current Managua Time |
The route was through farmland with volcanic mountains in the distance. We drove through several deep potholes filled with water and had to park just short of the distribution site at the local church due to deep mud.
The volunteers did an excellent job helping line up the children, haul the bedkits, and clear the long grass with machetes. Some bedkits went home on horseback and others were on top of a loaded school bus.
Following the distribution we had a meal of chicken and vegetable soup made by the ladies in the village.
Judy Dryden
for Team Nicaragua 2010
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